From AT&T: RAR Games

[desimaui]

I love most of the games on your pages but I need some advice. Some of your games are RAR games, that is they are not zip files which are so easy to download. I do not presently have the ability to play these games with my present setup which is a shame.Where do I get the program to run these RAR files and is it free? (I am a poor bunny...) Thank you for any help you might give...

[monkey0506]

There are several free decompressor programs that can open RAR files. One popular one that's completely free is 7zip. Personally I use WinRAR but that's not freeware.

Otherwise, Google is your friend... :

[Gilbert]

Yeah, RAR is fairly popular now, simply because it can produce solid archives that in general have a better compression ratio than ZIP, so it seems to be essential for people to be able to handle RAR files nowaday (though personally I don't like them).

Also, most recent archivers can handle both ZIP and RAR files already, so there shouldn't be much of a problem, unless you're still sticking to the sucky ZIP folder feature of Windows.

Sometimes specific groups of people would still use some other kinds of formats (for example the Japanese were still using LHA extensively not long ago, and *nix enthusiasts are still using the tar.z/gz/bz/bz2/whatever route most of the time), so it would also be handy that you make sure you know how to handle them when you encounter these files, but most archivers also support them already (except obsolete ones like .ace, which I never understand why people like to use).

[Ishmael]

unless you're still sticking to the sucky ZIP folder feature of Windows.

I never liked it on XP but I do love it on 7 More often than not I need just one or a few files off an archive, so why should I be unpacking the whole thing over and over again to get to those files when I can access them just like the files in the folder next door? Too bad every archiving software seems to insist on breaking this behaviour, so I didn't associat 7zip with anything, I just settle with using it off the context menu. And it still broke useful native Windows stuff. Thus, I don't like RARs either, having to install extra stuff to mess up things to get to them.

[AGA]

Personally I use WinRAR but that's not freeware.

WinRAR isn't technically free, but it's only nagware, so you can use it indefinitely without problem.

[RickJ]

Just use 7-zip.

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

[arj0n]

7-zip is a great one indeed, used it for a long time already...

[DeviantGent]

Whatever happened to WinAce? If I recall it has even better compression than WinRar.

[poc301]

Personally, I prefer to compress all my files into .WAD files.  I can then use Doom to decompress them all as needed

-Bill

[monkey0506]

Personally I use WinRAR but that's not freeware.

WinRAR isn't technically free, but it's only nagware, so you can use it indefinitely without problem.

Shhh...that's pirate talk. And September is a ways off yet! 8)

[Mr Flibble]

Whatever happened to WinAce? If I recall it has even better compression than WinRar.

"Beginning with version 2.65, WinAce is bundled with the WhenU adware program."
From the Wikipedia page.

Gets a download everytime someone wants to play Night of the Hermit though

[monkey0506]

As far as decompressing ACE files, I don't know about programs like 7zip (having never used it) but I know that WinRAR does decompress ACE, 7zip, RAR, .tar.gz/.bz/whatever, .ISO, etc. which is why I use it. It's very functional and very flexible. I'm not certain it has the highest compression ratios of any of the "free"-ish programs out there, but it's good enough for my purposes.

[m0ds]

Pretty sure WinZip can handle RAR files these days too?? Maybe I'm mistaken. But yeah, Google these kind of things please